Jason Veritek, or "Tek" to his friends, the Red Sox starting catcher will have surgery on his left knee and will miss at least a month of the season, it was announced today. They now must rely on twice-traded backup Doug Mirabelli and the man who destroyed Derek Jeter's shoulder a few years ago, Ken Huckaby, who has not caught a major-league game since last September 19, behind the plate.

Ever sympathetic to the Red Sox's plight, I offer a solution to their catching woes. Take Mike Lieberthal!

Please! I beg of you.

Lieberthal is in the last year of a contract that pays him $7.5 M (actually, it was an option year that kicked in in the midst of last season). For the Phils to re-sign him, which would be shear insanity, or in other words a good possibility for this team, they would have to pay him 80% of that salary or wait until May 1.

The Phils have been rotating a combination of Lieberthal (when he's been healthy), Sal Fasano (before he was traded to the Yankees), an aged rookie, Chris Coste (who is more of a nice story than a major-league player), all of whom are at least 33 years old, behind the plate.

The only catcher in the organization that has a shot of being their starter next year is Carlos Ruiz, who has spent most of the season in Triple-A Scranton. Ruiz got a cup of coffee during two of Lieberthal's DL stays, but was not very productive (.205 average, .234 OBP and .273 slugging average), but that includes a three game arc around July 4 in which he seemed to catch up with major league pitching going 2-for-3 in two of those games, only to be demoted again. He is batting .315 with a .906 OPS at Triple-A and is 26 years old.

Maybe Ruiz is not a major-league catcher. Maybe. But I keep thinking of a 26-year-old catcher that the Phils jettisoned in 2002 after a couple of good seasons in Scranton and some short and unpromising stints in the majors. That catcher went on to become the starting catcher for a Braves team that won two division titles. Of course, I'm speaking of Biff Pocoroba, er, Johnny Estrada.

The Phils are going nowhere this year. The deals they made at the trade deadline were merely to dump salary (even the remainder of Corey Lidle's measly $3M contract for 2006). They have to be salivating over the prospect of dumping the rest of Lieberthal's useless contract.

So why not dump Lieberthal on the Sox for whatever they can get and call up Ruiz to catch the rest of the year to see if he is a capable major-league starter?

Well, the Phils' bloodlust for salary dumps is unfortunately outweighed by their inherent distrust of young players.

Chase Utley is arguably the best second baseman in baseball, but he was not named the Phils starter until well into last season when he was already 26, well past the age a star player typically gets the his first starting job (and never mind that he played 94 games at the position the previous year).

Ryan Howard was vilified by the Phils brass (can't field, can't hit a curve, has minor-league power, is lazy, is not coachable, etc.) until an injury to Jim Thome forced the Phils to use him last year and of course, he went on to win the NL Rookie of the Year award. Howard is now one of the best young players in the NL, but is already 26.

Ruiz has nowhere near the rep of these two players. He seems destined to Johnny Estrada his way to a more baseball savvy organization in the next few years.

Meanwhile, the Phils will use the salary that they dumped at the deadline to sign an overpriced, middling starting catcher instead of signing a decent major-league starting pitcher, a dire need for this team. And that's why they are the Phils.